We’ve been visiting friends this weekend and I’d promised something creme egg-themed for dessert. A couple of weeks ago an amazing idea struck me – a giant creme egg cake! So the idea grew into fruition, and as you can see a monster of a cake. If you want to recreate the madness amazingness, here is how to do it…

Method– Start with the cake mix by beating the butter and sugar until creamy and fluffy
– Whisk in the eggs, vanilla essence and cocoa powder, until thoroughly combined
– Sieve the flour and fold in two tablespoons at a time, alternately with a tablespoon of milk
– Divide the mixture into 3 rectangular tins of slightly decreasing size. I used 12 x 7 inches, 10×7 inches, and 9×6 inches. If you don’t have exactly these sizes it doesn’t matter at all – work with what you’ve got. Your layers will be a bit thicker/thinner depending on the sizes, but you can easily shape the ‘egg’ still.
– Bake at 180 C for 15-20 minutes until firm and springy when pressed. Cooking time will vary slightly for the different tin sizes (and thicknesses), so make sure you check each one before removing from the oven
– Turn out from the tins and leave to cool

– Next onto the chocolate icing – in a saucepan heat together the milk and butter, until just starting to boil
– Turn the heat off and add the 200g chocolate, broken into small pieces. Stir well; the residual heat should be enough to melt the chocolate after a couple of minutes
– Sieve the icing sugar and cocoa powder – very important or you’ll get lumpy icing! – before stirring into the chocolate mixture. Once fully combined, set aside to cool

– Once the cakes are cool, cut the largest into an oval/egg shape using a serrated knife. Make a paper template beforehand if you’re worried about doing it freehand! Be sure to keep the offcuts (don’t eat them all!) as they’re needed later on.
– Place the next size of cake on top and cut to the same size. Then, cut the sides at slight angle to start creating the curved effect of the edge of the egg
– Once you’re happy with the size and shape of the two bottom layers, sandwich together with a thin layer of chocolate icing
– Next, use the offcuts from the first two layers to create a third outer ring layer – like a wall around the top of the cake. This is what the fondant / creme filling will sit in. Arrange the pieces ‘dry’, and once you’re happy with the whole layer, ‘glue’ into place with a little more chocolate icing. Secure with cocktail sticks if needed, until the icing sets. Be sure to leave the tops of the cocktail sticks poking out so you can remove them later. At this point, put the whole cake in the fridge for at least an hour, to set

– Melt the remaining 100g of chocolate in the microwave / over hot water
– Using the back of a teaspoon, coat the entire inside of the cake (bottom and sides) in chocolate, being sure not to leave any gaps. This will form a sealed space for the fondant to sit in – so it won’t soak into the cake or leak out the sides. Remember there’s no such thing as too much chocolate, so add more if you’re not sure the edges are sealed or not. Refrigerate again until the chocolate has set.

– While the cake’s in the fridge, you can make the filling. Grate or finely chop the fondant (if it’s colder this’ll be easier), and put in a large bowl / a stand mixer if you have one. Add a tablespoon of boiling water and start mixing. You should slowly find the fondant starts to meld back together in a firm, buttercream like consistency. If it’s too stiff to mix, add a little more boiling water, a teaspoon at a time. You want the mixture to be firm enough for a spoon to stand up in – or it will run everywhere when you cut the cake! If you accidentally add too much water, a little icing sugar will firm the mixture up again
– Transfer two tablespoons of the fondant mixture into a separate bowl, and mix together with a drop of orange food colouring
– Remove the cake from the fridge and spoon in two-thirds of the white fondant
– Create a well in the centre and add the orange fondant. Try not to mix it around too much, you want the colours to remain separate
– Spoon the remaining white fondant over the orange, to cover it. Don’t feel you need to use all the fondant, if there’s too much for your cake. You don’t want it spilling out the sides!
– Cut the final piece of cake into a smaller oval shape, so it will cover the fondant filling. Use a serrated knife again to slope the sides and form the edge of the egg shape
– Put a little chocolate icing around the top edge of the cake, before placing the final cake piece on top
– Cover the cake in the remaining chocolate icing – I’d recommend a thin crumb coat first, refrigerate for half an hour, then a second smoother coat. Finish with a star design on the top and lines around the outside, using a thin knife.
– Chill until ready to serve, slice, and enjoy!

(Serving with extra creme eggs entirely optional – there’s more than enough chocolate and sugar in the cake itself!)

I’m going to come right out and say it. This is one of my proudest makes to date. I am SO pleased with how the fondant toppers turned out for these cupcakes – and so they should, god only knows how many hours they took!

This was my first ever baby shower, and I was so pleased to be able to make some cupcakes for the lovely mother-to-be. She and the rest of the party were delighted, as was I when they went down a treat.

The base was a light lemon cupcake, with whipped lemon buttercream, but of course the pièce de résistance are the fondant baby-themed toppers. You may guess from the colour palette that it’s a boy!

All the toppers are hand-made of course. Although one of the party asked if I’d bought them – what a compliment! I tend to get an idea for my projects then spend a bit of time on google looking at images for further inspiration and to figure out how I’m going to make the idea a reality. That was exactly the case with these – I sat with google image search open on my iPad with all my fondant and tools in front on the table, colouring and shaping the pieces and fixing together with a little edible glue.

I had 18 cupcakes in total, so decided to make 3 of each of 6 different varieties of topper.

First up – and probably taking the longest to make, smiley happy teddy bears.

Teeny tiny baby footprints – blue for a boy, of course.

Three little ducks; these were great fun to make. Can someone please have a fowl-themed party, so I can do some more?!

Baby dummies (pacifiers) – I used a pastel green so the colour palette was not overwhelmingly blue.

Teat-topped milk bottles, with hand-painted markers, using a little gel food colour and a very fine brush.

And finally – what every baby needs, a first set of wheels! Turquoise prams complete with little white cushions inside.

The finished set – absolutely love them!

And because I’m so pleased with the result – more pictures, just because…

I took my Cath Kidston blue floral cake stand to the shower – a perfect display piece for these little babies.

HOW cute are these baby shower napkins?

The only problem I have? That I can’t pick a favourite! What do you think?

Happy New Year! Hope your festive period was as fun-filled as ours… it says something when it’s taken over 2 weeks to upload this post 🙂

I was tasked (as per usual!) with providing dessert for a pre-Christmas meal with friends. You may remember last year’s Chocolate Christmas Pudding cake – well this was devoured equally as quickly. It’s not necessarily just a festive recipe either; I’d happily have a big slice of this at any time of the year.

As I was trying to think of what to make, a little lightbulb pinged in the back of my mind – I’d bought this gingerbread man silicon mould about 2 years ago, and as you can see had not yet used it.

I’d decided to try another gluten-free cake, and chocolate seemed like a safer option than a more complicated ginger one. I used this recipe from This Cotswold Girl – adding a couple of teaspoons of ground ginger to live up to the name. The mix was actually a little too much for the mould, so I made a few small muffins as well. You can never have too much chocolate cake!

The cake came out rich and fudgy, I’ll definitely be using this recipe again.

However the pièce de résistance for me was the amazing (if I may say so myself) salted caramel icing. It did catch a bit in the pan, but I think the caramelised sugar flecks give it an even more authentic gingerbread man look.

It’s a thick, fudgy icing that goes amazingly with the chocolate cake. The above recipe gives a very generous quantity, but I didn’t struggle to use it all up!

I let the icing set a little, putting the cake in the fridge for half an hour, before finishing with some red and white royal icing decorations – sleeves and a belt:

And a wonderfully wonky little face! Well, nobody likes their gingerbread men perfect, do they?

I can’t believe this is my first festive post of the year and we’re only just over a week away from the big day – where does the time go?

These little chocolate cupcakes were baked for a charity cake sale that my local Free Cakes for Kids rep sent over the details for. If there’s one thing guaranteed to get me in the kitchen, then a charity cake sale is just that!

The cupcakes were a rich chocolate base, with added white chocolate chunks and candied orange peel. You could easily vary the recipe and add more dried fruit, nuts, or more chocolate.

Method– Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
– Add the eggs and a tablespoon of flour, and beat again
– Sieve in the remaining flour, baking powder and cocoa powder, and add the chocolate and candied peel pieces
– Fold the mixture together with a metal spoon, until all combined
– Spoon into cupcake cases, and bake at 180 degrees C for 14 – 20 minutes, until the cake springs back when pressed lightly with a finger
– Remove from the tin and allow to cool completely before decorating

To decorate
– Heat the marmalade / apricot jam until runny, and using a pastry brush lightly coat the top of each cake
– Cut circles of chocolate fondant (using a pastry cutter), and place over the top of the cupcake, pressing the sides down
– Cut a second circle, of white fondant, and either freehand (using a knife), or with a way shaped cutter, cut about a third off the circle with a wavy edge, to look like dripping icing. Stick this onto the chocolate fondant using a little dab of water.
– Stick or paint on small circles in a dark colour, to replicate the fruit in the Christmas pudding
– Finish with a green sprig leaf and holly berries – and a little edible glitter if you feel the need!

All packaged up and ready to go. I don’t like Christmas Pudding but could happily devour a big plate of these after dinner!

This weekend just gone, Rob’s parents, John and Claire, had a celebratory lunch for their upcoming ruby wedding anniversary. 40 years – what an achievement!

Claire had asked me months ago to make a cake, and specifically the Tropical Fruit Cake with coconut icing that I made for CCC last Christmas. Coincidentally it was exactly a year since I last made this cake!

I used 1 1/2 times the recipe to make a huge square cake, and a good thick layer of coconut icing, which set in the fridge before I started decorating.

Using red fondant throughout, I personalised the cake with a sparkly name plate, and ‘Ruby Wedding Anniversary’ lettering on the edge of the plate. To finish – some sparkly ruby-red flowers.

Rob had mentioned that his parents wanted to give some of the cake to friends who couldn’t be at the lunch – so | made some matching cupcakes to ensure there was plenty to go around. Sticking with the theme, they were a (ruby) red velvet chocolate cake base, topped with a swirl of vanilla butter cream, and coordinating red flowers.

It was a great lunch and lovely to be able to celebrate with them. Happy Anniversary John & Claire!

Well it has come to the final week of #greatbloggersbakeoff2014 – and here is my final showstopper!

I wanted to challenge myself, as the bakers had done in the tent, so embarked on the very final challenge of the series. This was the pièce montée – a decorative celebration or centrepiece cake, featuring different baking elements, decorations, and techniques.

Well this certainly was a learning experience for me – planning shapes and sizes and doing things in the right order are just two points to note! Nevertheless, everything came together to create, kind of, my ferris wheel pièce montée (what do you mean you can’t see it!)

The different elements I used were as follows:

– Ombre chocolate cake base (adapted from Nigella’s recipe), filled and covered with raspberry butter cream
– Macarons, decorated with a light dusting of edible glitter
– Chocolate and ginger biscuits (adapted from a Christmas gingerbread house recipe)
– Profiteroles, filled with raspberry cream and decorate with white chocolate
– A golden and red sugar decoration, to represent the wheel (simply made by creating a sugar syrup in a heavy bottomed pan)

The individual elements I was very pleased with – the putting together a little less so! I had not filled and iced my cake early enough, so it was not set enough by the time I came to build everything up, and things started to slide a little…
I had also vastly over-estimated the size of the sugar wheel, it was too large for the cake and dwarfed the profiteroles and biscuit behind!

Nevertheless, everything tasted good, and pulling it to pieces and eating was definitely the most fun part 🙂

Thank you to Jenny for hosting the GreatBloggersBakeOff again this year – it was great fun and I definitely learnt some new techniques, watch out for some more choux pastry coming soon!

This week saw the return of the much-loved Great British Bake-Off, and with it, the amazing celebration of all things cake that is #GreatBloggersBakeOff2014, which you can find more details on here.

My first swiss roll recipe – Simple Strawberry Jam Swiss Roll , is without a doubt the most popular post on this blog. For why, I simply don’t know, but am certainly not complaining!

However simple is not always sufficient – and for this GBBO I wanted to ramp things up a bit. I’ve wanted to try a piped design roll for a while, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Add to this homemade strawberry jam – why do things by half – and you can see why this really is a super swiss roll!

To start with – the jam, so it has time to cool. We are right in the middle of British strawberry season and there are lots of brilliant juicy fruits in the shops at the moment.

– Chop the strawberries – I found quartering gave good chunky pieces in the jam, without them being too overbearing in the sponge

– Mix the strawberries, lemon juice, and sugar in a heavy bottomed pan, and put on a low heat until the sugar has melted
– Turn the heat up to medium/high, and set the timer for 10 minutes. The mixture should foam and bubble up; stir often and monitor the heat so it doesn’t boil over

– When the ten minutes is nearly up, start testing to see if the jam has reached setting point. This is 105 degrees C on a jam/sugar thermometer, or you can use the wrinkle-test , using pre-frozen saucers to test if it sets.
– If it’s not setting, boil for a couple more minutes and test again. As a last resort you can some more lemon juice to boost the pectin levels.
– Once at setting point, take off the heat and pour into a bowl. Leave to cool whilst you make the sponge.

– Put the eggs and sugar into a large bowl and beat on high for up to 10 minutes, until the mixture goes from pale and yellow to light, white, and about double in size
(KitchenAid optional… but it really does help!)

– Whilst the eggs are beating, prepare your tray. An ordinary baking tray (with sides) is more than sufficient.
– Brush the edges and bottom of the tin with oil or melted butter.
– Cut baking or greaseproof paper precisely to size, it should be completely flat
– Brush the paper with more oil/butter, and sprinkle well with flour and sugar, to prevent any sticking

– Sieve the flour and gently fold into the egg mixture.

– To make the strawberry decorations, take 3 teaspoons of the mixture, and colour one orange, one red, and one green.
– Using small piping bags, pipe green leaves, orange seeds and fill round with red strawberry shapes

– Bake for 2 minutes at 180 degrees, so the strawberries set and don’t mix with the rest of the batter

– Take the tray out of the oven and let it cool for a couple of minutes.
– Spread the rest of the batter evenly across the tray, and return to the oven, for 8-10 minutes, at 180 degrees

– After 8 minutes, test to see if the sponge is done by lightly pressing with your fingers. If it springs back, it’s done; if your fingerprints remain indented, return to the oven for another minute

– When it’s ready, run a knife around the edge of the tin, before flipping out onto another baking sheet, sprinkled with a good layer of sugar. I put my baking sheet on top of a damp tea towel which helps stop the swiss roll from cracking

– Using another baking sheet (and I used a chopping board for support), flip the swiss roll over so the decorated side is face down
– Working quickly, whilst it’s still hot, spread the jam all across the cake

– Using the greaseproof paper to help, carefully, and as tightly as possible, roll up the cake

– Once all rolled up, wrap the greaseproof paper around and tuck in the ends. Leave to cool for at least half an hour before unwrapping and tucking in!

I was really happy with the way the strawberries turned out!

And the roll itself – Paul and Mary would be impressed – a good swirl, even filling…

Certainly not simple but stunning and delicious – a good first show-stopper to start the series!
And the best thing about a swiss roll, it’s still fat-free, and with all those strawberries must surely count as one of your five a day 😉

Like this:

A beautiful summers day and perfect excuse to use some more of my treats from Sugar and Crumbs.

A quick taste test and I was instantly smitten with their Pink Lemonade Natural Flavoured Icing Sugar. You know those Refresher sweets, with the fizzy lemon centre? It tastes exactly like that fizzy sherbet!
And despite the name, the sugar is white in colour… so you could easily confuse any taste testers… mwah haha 😉

To keep on the theme I wanted to top these lemonades with a little straw – but no ordinary paper or plastic version. Instead I rolled together thing lengths of red and white fondant, twisting and intertwining to give the effect of a striped paper straw.

Once cut into lengths, I left them to air-dry and harden overnight.

The cupcakes were a simple vanilla base – with more than enough flavour punch in the icing.To ice 12 cupcakes I used 350g pink lemonade icing sugar, 185g soft butter, a couple of drops of pink food colouring, and a splash of milk to get to piping consistency.

I used a star nozzle to get that perfect swirl, before creating a hole for the ‘straws’ with the back of a paint brush (the fondant would break if you tried to push it straight into the cake).

A final topping of pink shimmer sugar for that little extra ‘fizz’ – et voila!

Definitely cuter than the real thing – and surprisingly refreshing to boot. A big things up to Sugar and Crumbs on this one!

This year he requested a minion – and of course I was only too happy to oblige. We are big Despicable Me fans and I’d been wanting to create one of these yellow cuties for a while.

For a bit of a change, I wanted to use a flavoured Madeira cake for the centre. I cannot rave enough about Paul Hollywood’s Coconut Madeira cake. Not only was it super easy to make (who doesn’t love a one-bowl recipe), but it came out so moist and light. Absolutely delicious!

I combined it with a lime buttercream, made using Sugar and Crumbs key lime icing sugar. More on this to come as it was a perfect combination between sweet and tangy, and a perfect compliment to the coconut cake.

On to the decoration – once the cake was shaped the fondant work was relatively easy. I covered the top half in a bright yellow, and the bottom in a rich blue. There was only a small overlap between the two as I didn’t want the fondant to be too thick for people to eat! The hands and feet were covered in some chocolate fondant dyed black, and pressed into shape.

To finish the overalls, I created a mottled effect, using gel food colouring and a painbrush, to give a more realistic denim / fabric appearance. And of course the all important ‘Gru’ logo – painted on with some black food colouring.

And the key feature – those all important goggles. I used white fondant for both the goggle rim and eyes, painting the rim with silver edible shimmer before adding to the cake.

Of course – what minion would be complete without that cheeky smile! Did someone say ‘bottom’?!

The finished cake – I was really pleased and especially so as it was all made in one night.

You may have guessed from the title, but today is my lovely dad’s 60th birthday. If this doesn’t call for a cake, what does!

Liquorice allsorts are one of his all-time favourite things. For as long as I can remember they have been a staple birthday / father’s day / christmas present when stuck for any other ideas. While trying to figure out what to call the individual allsorts, I came across this brilliant h2g2 guide. Very entertaining but not sure I’d agree – why on earth would you leave chocolate until last!

As I was making 3 cakes I wanted them all to be different flavours, so they truly were allsorts!

First and most time-consuming from a decorating perspective – a replica of the blue sugar ball covered allsort, which normally has an aniseed jelly inside. This one was much sweeter however – a lemon madeira cake centre, covered with a blueberry buttercream, and finished with rolled circles of blue fondant.

To make both the round cakes I used the smaller of my Ikea Sockerkaka moulds – a perfect size so we wouldn’t be eating cake for the rest of the month! And very quick & easy to clean between recipes as well.

Next up, in the same circle mould, the yellow coconut covered allsort. Sticking with the coconut covering made it easy to recreate the look, and inside I used my Tropical Fruit Cake recipe. A simple circle of black fondant on the top finished the liquorice look.

Finally, and sneaking into the above picture, the black liquorice tube filled with a white cream, for want of a better name! This one was an easy chocolate swiss roll , filled with a vanilla buttercream. To get the outer look, I wrapped white fondant around the ends, before rolling the whole cake in some black-coloured chocolate fondant. My hands were rather black too after kneading the food colouring into that!

By the wonderful power of hindsight, I do wish I’d made the swiss roll a bit smaller. Putting all the cakes together on the board I realised that the planned “60” was actually rather tricky to read!

Still, with black hands and a bomb-site of a kitchen, it had to do! I’d bought a pack of allsorts to model the cake on, so used some of these to decorate the edge of the cake board, and the others as well-earned reward for a tired baker 😉

Trying to spell out a message with allsorts was not a big success, so a piped message in matching liquorice-black took their place. And more allsorts for me to eat!

We celebrated with afternoon tea at Perkins Restaurant in Nottingham, (as it was THAT good last time), alongside some suitably over-sized helium balloons.

And of course it was amazing as always! The staff let us while away the afternoon with plenty of tea refills, and just when dad thought all the cake was gone – out they came with much, much more! One happy daddy 🙂